[pyre]

So Newton's 'Laws' were never proven to be wrong. They are still consistent in all cases, right? And every theory in physics has been completely and 100% proven through lab tests and empirical evidence.

> thought experiments can't disprove reality

Reality is what it is. If thermodynamics is wrong, it doesn't change reality. It just changes our understanding of reality. Don't be so melodramatic. Once a law/theory is dis-proven there isn't some deja-vu-the-matrix-is-changing-something moment.

At the very least, figuring out where the energy loss is in the system will teach others something, and possibly yourself as well. Thought experiments are where theories come from. Unless you think that theories spring into existence without thought.

{edit} Please don't say, "but I already know about thermodynamics, so there is nothing more for me to learn!" because you would be entirely missing the point.

[camccann]

"The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."

-- Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

I suspect most physicists would sooner question their own sanity than question the Second Law, and with good reason.

[nazgulnarsil]

if you think science can be wrong you're the one who misunderstands it. science can not be wrong. science also can not be right. science provides us with more or less consistent interpretations of sensory data. Newton was not proven wrong. his predictions were subsumed by a more general case.

likewise if we discover a physical phenomenon that violates our current understanding of thermodynamics we don't throw that understanding out. anything that succeeds it needs to explain all the data that it explained + the new stuff.

[pyre]

I think that we're bickering over semantics here. I'm not saying that we jettison 100% of something when it doesn't explain a new phenomenon. When I say 'thermodynamics is proven wrong,' I mean that we find a case where it doesn't apply. As it stands now, the thermodynamics 'says' that it applies to everything. So when we find an exception it is 'wrong.'